Who'dda Thunk It? Oracle, Microsoft, Peanut Butter and Pickles

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Long-time competitors Microsoft Corp and Oracle recently announced they would collaborate with Oracle software on its cloud-based platforms, permitting bits of Oracle's software to interface with Microsoft's software and online services.

Surprised by the Microsoft and Oracle partnership news? The old worn phrases like "oil and water," and "cats and dogs," spring to mind far more than "peanut butter and jelly" when those two names are used in the same sentence. (Photo: Business Wire)

This effort is aimed at improving the rivals' chances as new competitors emerge selling less expensive services based in remote data centers.

We've all been in this business a long time, and I think most of us were a little surprised by the recent announcement of a newfound relationship between MS and Oracle. The old worn phrases like "oil and water," and "cats and dogs," spring to mind far more than "peanut butter and jelly" when those two names are used in the same sentence.

Still, it's a sign of the times. Our staid market of hardware vendors and software vendors, timeless mainframes and ubiquitous x86 machines, platform lock-in and startup challenges has changed. New platforms have emerged and dominated in the past 5 years (VMW, Xen, Hyper-V). New computing models (Amazon Cloud) have become standard in months - which feels like nanoseconds in a world where flavors of UNIX are still frequent cocktail party conversation. So, it stands to reason that the bastions of our industry are feeling the need to break some glass to maintain relevance.

But - who are we to talk? We're BMC, right? Hardly the picture of new-fangled cool kids with steampunk web sites and skinny jeans...?

Here's why: Yes, we're a bastion of the industry - but our role is - and always has been - remarkably (perhaps presciently) aligned to this brave new world.

We traditionally support the broadest array of underlying platforms under our cloud management solution. From day 1. When I still had to explain to customers why bare metal was a key cloud platform. When we received cheers from analysts and customers as LPARS on the p-series were included. Most recently, when we extended support to OpenStack. VMware is table stakes.

Yesterday, you would have laughed yourself silly at the words "Oracle running on Windows" and today it's on your RFP document. In this world, can you honestly say you can anticipate all your platform needs going forward? Or do you go with a vendor who has a proven commitment to supporting your wildest dreams?

We pioneered the domain of business service management. Oracle runs on Windows, decoupling the application from the platform. They recognize that the real domain for success is with the application (in their battle with Salesforce) - the piece of the technology puzzle that delivers the business value. Cloud is not about the resources. Cloud is about delivering and operating a business service.

With that philosophy baked into every product management discussion, BMC Cloud Management was designed with the concept of flexible, configurable Service Blueprints. Not rigid resource templates, but rather, the ability to deliver the actual entire service your users need. As the rest of the industry moves towards the realization that the platform is ancillary... they will find that their hypervisor-up model for cloud is sorely lacking.

We are committed to the complete cloud. Heterogeneous platforms and complete business services handle the initial complexity of delivering a service. But what happens then? Who ensures the MS platform and the Oracle app are performing and have sufficient resource? Who identifies issues before they occur - whether they are performance related or configuration or even compliance? Press releases are great - but they are no architecture diagram. BMC's approach is to integrate the instantiation of the cloud service with its ongoing operations for smooth sailing - not just on day 1, but all throughout its lifetime.

At this fortuitous - or perhaps inevitable - moment in time, it's quite gratifying to be a bastion of industry that had the forethought to anticipate the trends in IT. And while Cassandra is rarely thanked for her efforts in advance, when all the components of the solution are ready and waiting, the future, while perplexing, becomes much more fun.

Business runs better when IT runs at its best. Tens of thousands of IT organizations around the world -- from small and mid-market businesses to the Global 100 -- rely on BMC Software (NAS: BMC) to manage their business services and applications across distributed, mainframe, virtual and cloud environments. BMC helps customers cut costs, reduce risk and achieve business objectives with the broadest choice of IT management solutions, including industry-leading Business Service Management and Cloud Management offerings. For the four fiscal quarters ended March 31, 2013, BMC revenue was approximately $2.2 billion. www.bmc.com